The Act of Falling in Love
by Eriol-sama
Summary: Continuation of WHen He Falls in Love. What would be of those boys after the almost non-existent love confession at the National's final? Will they fall deeper despite of the distance between them? SanadaxSaeki Please read and review!
1. 1st Fall

'Lo! Long time no see and no postings! Got caught up with my jobs here and there, not to mention the internet connection around my work area is sooo lame! -.-;;

I've just realized that studying + working lots of stress and lack of time to read, muchless to write for the sake's of my inner-yaoi fan girl's satisfaction! Thus, please do bear with me with all my randomness. Anyway, these past few months I'd been squeezing some of my time to write this Arc, I hope you guys enjoy it and for the previous reader of the previous arc, please do continue read! (that if you're not bored with it -.-;;)

Okay enough babbling, right on to the ficcie!

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The Second Arc: Continuation from WHen He Falls in Love

Title: The Act of Falling

Fandom: Prince of Tennis

Pairing: Sanada GenichirouxSaeki Kojirou

Genre: Drama, a bit of AU

Rating: PG-13 (it will increase for alter chapters)

Summary: What would be of those boys after the almost non-existent love confession? Will they fall deeper?

Warning: Yaoi (means boys kissing), mild to moderate OOC

Disclaimer: These boys are not mine, just borrowing them for fun! They belong to Konomi-sensei.

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First fall, keyword: scarf

--

**_"So, tell me your favorite color."_**

**_"Blue, like the ocean."_**

--

The National tournament is over. The summer holiday is over and school has already begun. It is an anticlimax period for all junior high tennis clubs, since there will be no other tournaments but friendly matches here and there. Most of the tennis clubs do not have their practices as intense as before the National's, including Rokkaku's. Therefore, practices are not held daily as before.

It is on one of those days that Saeki has decided he needs to buy a new pair of knitting needles after he has given his own pair to Sudou when Sudou has amazingly managed to break his own pair.

--

"Yo, Sae-kun! Ken-kun asked us to go to the beach with him after school." Sudou greets on Saeki who is putting in his notebooks in the bag.

"Sorry, can't do."

"Why can't you come with us, Sae-chan?"

"Student council works to do?" Ryou asks him while is lounging on the chair beside Saeki's seat.

"No, I need to go to the handcraft store for a moment. Sorry, It-chan,but I'll catch you guys there." Saeki picks up his bag.

"What are you looking for there?" Kurobane asks as all of them exited Saeki's class.

"I need to buy new pair of knitting needles after I gave mine to Sudou when he broke his." Saeki looks at Sudou cheekily.

Kurobane only raises his eyebrow at Sudou questioningly while is feeling amused at the same time.

"I never understand how you can actually like to knit." Sudou sighs as he reminisces on the pain of finishing his own handwork of knitting.

"He just has a knack for it, Sudou, while you are sucked at it." Ryou comments smugly.

Saeki laughs heartily at Ryou's compliment whereas Sudou growls, "The pot calls on the kettle back for failing on that class too, Ryou!"

When Davide and Aoi have joined them, Saeki takes off after promising to Aoi that he will definitely come to the beach right away after he buys the things he needs.

--

The handcraft store is located at the corner, three blocks away from Rokkaku's school complex. It is small and cozy yet it has a complete collections on handcraft items. The prices are also cheaper there than the shopping mall hence, Saeki likes this store and he is already a regular customer there. Furthermore, the owner, the plump woman, is kind. She even does not mind to share the knowledge to the customers or teach them. That is actually the secret why Saeki can even knit quite eloquently.

The store is empty when Saeki arrives there. He enters and greets the owner then he moves to the aisle where the various handcraft tools are shelved. He browses through the various knitting needles then he decides to pick the metal one as to replace his wooden one. While he is curious on the differences, he thinks that it will be safer should Sudou asks to lend him the needles again if he manages to break Saeki's previous ones. How Sudou manages to break his own needles, he cannot even imagine.

Saeki is walking toward the cashier and is passing by the yarn's aisle when he takes sight on a particular yarn from corner of his eyes. He changes his track and walks toward the yarn shelves then stops in front of the yarn which colour has caught his attention. He takes out the yarn from the shelve and he smiles as he looks at the colour.

The colour is an exact colour of one that Sanada had for his answer when Saeki asked him about his favorite colour. It is a blue with a little mix of green that reminds him to the colour of the ocean. He muses that it is like the blue of the sea in Chiba during the summer days too.

The colour has also made Saeki thinks on this past summer which had been one of the most memorable ones for him. There was the Nationals, the humiliating defeat by Higa, then the usual heart-aching longing he harboured for his childhood friend and on the top of them is the kiss he had shared with Sanada right after the final was over.

Sanada. It was a topic that Saeki has wondered during the short days of what left of their summer break yet still he does not have the answers of why Sanada had confessed on him. It is actually quite relieving that Sanada has not pursued for his answer even if Saeki sure he can easily have his number from Yanagi's data. Yet even though it is relieving, he cannot help not to think whether or not Sanada is serious about him, seeing that he does not even bother to contact him until now.

Perhaps Sanada is waiting for my response, Saeki wonders as he caresses the yarn's thread and his mind wanders on the conversation that he has had with Kurobane.

_"What will you do about him?"_

_Kurobane had asked him when they were out at the beach on their last day of summer break. It was at night and the team had decided to have their own summer party with hand-held fireworks._

_"Him?" That question had surprised Saeki and even confused him._

_"Sanada, you dumb." Kurobane said harshly as he stared sharply on his long time friends as they had grown up together in the playground that was run by Ojii._

_"Oh." Saeki looked on the rest of them team who already walked ahead them and Sudou and Davide were currently setting the place while Ryou and Itsuki were preparing the fireworks with Aoi_

_messing around instead of helping._

_"Well?"_

_Saeki sighed. "I don't know what to do actually, Bane."_

_Kurobane snorted, "You can start from whether you actually have a feeling toward him or not."_

_"That..."_

_Kurobane sighed then shook his head, "Don't tell me that Fuji still had you hindered."_

_"Bane!" Saeki flushed slightly._

_"Everyone in the team know already, Sae. Even Itsuki. I don't know about Ken though. But they know."_

_"Oh..."_

_"We do wish you to be happy you know?"_

_Saeki looked at Kurobane questioningly._

_"We all quite agree that Fuji is bad for you."_

_"He's not bad, Bane. After all it's me who fall to him."_

_Kurobane frowned then continued, "Anyway, it's still bad for you."_

_"And what do you expect me to do? It's not like I can to simply forget about him and move on."_

_Kurobane stated still with frown etched on his face, "Habit does die hard, Sae."_

_"That particular of mine is apparently harder."_

_"That's why we actually think Sanada would be good for you."_

_Saeki managed to look scandalized. "That would be unfair for me to use him like that!"_

_"I don't mean that." Kurobane snorted, "I mean why don't you try to have a relationship with_

_Sanada? Be friends at first then you can decide later after that. I don't mean to jump right to_

_being lovers."_

_Saeki flushed at the mention of lovers that drew a smirk from Kurobane._

_"I know." Saeki said almost huffyly to cover his embarrassment._

_Kurobane put his hand on Saeki shoulder which made them stop on their track, "You should try, Sae. You won't know what awaits you once you are over the hill. After all sometimes new things are good for a change."_

_Saeki smiled warmly at his friends, "Thank you, Bane."_

_Kurobane just smiled and half-hugged his friend, "You're welcome, that's what friends are for."_

_Saeki nodded then he walked off of Bane before he turned and said cheekily, "I think Davide does more than this as your friend, Bane?" Saeki winked mischievously._

_"Why, you!!" Kurobane blushed then he took off to chase Saeki who already had run ahead of him._

--

Saeki smiles and thinks perhaps his friends are right; he should try this out before he even decides shut on Sanada. After all being friends with Sanada does not mean he is his lover. Then from there he can evaluate and he may decide what his answer will be.

Later, Saeki exits the store after purchasing a pair of knitting needles, three yarns of the ocean-coloured one and two yarns which colour are combination of black, white and muted grey that reminds him of Sanada's straight forward conservative disciplined nature but unexpectedly tolerant mind.

--

"Still no response from him?" Yukimura asks.

Sanada along with Yukimura and Yanagi are having lunch together in the roof top.

"No." Sanada answers curtly. While his face betrays nothing but inside he is frowning.

"How many days has it passed?" Yukimura wonders.

"It is already three weeks and four days passed." Yanagi supplies.

Yukimura sighs, "Why don't you call him, Genichirou?"

Sanada looks up from his food to Yukimura and shrugs, "What's the point?"

"By contacting him you may have the answer faster." Yanagi stated.

"It won't change anything if I rush him, Renji."

"While I agree, but how long should you wait, Gen?" Now Yukimura frowns.

"..."

"Think you had scared him away, Gen?"

"Seiichi!" Sanada sported a slight flush on his face that amused both Yukimura and Yanagi.

Sanada contemplates on Yukimura's statement that rings a truth and sighs, "I'll wait until the end of this week. If there is still no news from him, then I'll call him."

After that the conversation is closed as they hear Marui and Kirihara along with Jackal and Rikkaidai's D1 come up to the roof to join them.

--

Later, when the autumn has come as the leaves start to change their colour, when it is a particular day that Sanada sulks on the lack of response from a particular fellow vice captain, when Sanada is busy blaming himself of scaring the said boy away by his impulsiveness, when it is still early in the morning and the school is scarce of student, when it is the day that they have their morning practice instead of afternoon practice, when Sanada is the only one of the tennis member that has arrived, it is when Sanada finds a brown paper bag sitting innocently just before the door to the club room addressed to him.

Sanada picks it up slowly and is actually wary of Niou's trick, hence, he carefully opens the paper bag. When he sees what is inside, he feels elated and all dark thoughts go away from his mind as he suddenly feels that his day has already brightened.

Inside there is a scarf, obviously is hand-knitted, which colour reminds Sanada of the ocean. Among the sea of ocean there is a single line of black-white-muted grey colour that weaves into them, creating a neat pattern of simple yet artistically waves like. All in all it reminds Sanada of Saeki. Saeki's hair, Saeki's eyes and even Saeki's scent as he burrows his nose into

the scarf.

Attached to the scarf, is a paper with a neat handwriting on it.

_Happy autumn days! Hope you like it. These are my cellphone's number and my email address, just call/text me if you want to meet!_

_PS: Sorry, it takes a long time. My hands were shaky and I did think too much, but I guess, I will give it a try. So let us try our best!_

_Sincerely,_

_Saeki Koujirou_

That day is one of the happiest days for Sanada and he cannot stop smiling from the beginning of the practice until its end. He also wears the scarf around his neck loosely for the rest of the day in the school which has pretty much amused his other teammates as they congratulate/tease him all day long.

End of First fall

Words count: 1955

Completed on 5th September 2008

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Author's note:

1. I know it's been a long time I don't write anything so please do bear with me with all the grammartical errors since my only beta reader is Microsoft Word 2008.

2. Dunno what to say anymore, so just enjoy this story and please do review or comment. They're going to help so much to pump up my spirit to write, even in the barren land with nothingness where I am currently stuck for about these 2 years ;;

3. Actually I'm looking for a nice Saeki-fiction but not a Saeki-Fuji or Saeki-Kisarazu, any clues?

4. This chapter is quite horrible! runs and cries Sorry to disappoint but right now it's quite almost the best I can offer ;;


	2. 2nd Fall

Gomen...I'm just too busy with my med school life especially that now I'm in the internship -.-; Well...got a side job too anyway, like being a cosplayer despite the business of the school bwahahaha ;P

Thanks to: all my readers and my reviewers (sherlock, SphereShadow, azab and shadowkaoru15) and to all those who add this story into Story Alerts's feature.

Okay, now, onto the ficcie!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Second Arc: Continuation from When He Falls in Love

Title: The Act of Falling

Fandom: Prince of Tennis

Pairing: Sanada GenichirouxSaeki Kojirou

Genre: Drama, a bit of AU

Rating: PG-13 (it will increase for later chapters)

Summary: What would be of those boys after the almost non-existent love confession? Will they fall deeper?

Warning: Yaoi (means boys kissing), mild to moderate OOC

Disclaimer: These boys are not mine, just borrowing them for fun! They belong to Konomi-sensei.

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Second fall, keywords: short messages

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"…_**just call/text me…"**_

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Saeki's cellphone beeps when he was writing his essay for the Japanese History class. He does not stop on his writing but just glances on his cellphone which is laying just beside his upturned book.

It is a new mail in his inbox and the sender ID he does not recognize. Saeki stops then he flips his phone to read the message. After reading the unknown message, he smiles and types a reply then he hits the send button.

Saeki puts down his cellphone and continues to write on his essay with smile adorns his face.

_Saeki,_

_The scarf is nice. Thank you._

_Sanada_

The message is short and to the point even the language is almost painfully formal just like the way Sanada speaks. Structurally right and grammatically correct even with the right punctuations with straight forward nature. While it may seem rigid but Saeki knows that it is utmost sincere.

-----------------

After the shower, Sanada walks back to his room. He sees his cellphone's LCD is flashing, he moves to the desk and picks it up. There are two messages in his inbox. He opens it and there are one from Yukimura and one from Saeki.

He opens the one from Yukimura who is inquiring about the World History homework which he types the reply later. Then he opens the one from Saeki with a light smile curves on his lips.

_You're welcome! I'm glad you like it! *smilies*_

_Saeki_

A short message which language is kept friendly and light. Not a bubbly cheerful but not stuffily stiff. While it uses abbreviation and cute smilies, it does not flaunt excessively. A nice composed sentence which is gracious and pleasantly focused, just like Saeki because Sanada knows that he is like that.

-----------------

The messages from Saeki are irregular by the best description, be it the length or the time he sends them or even the topics and their frequencies.

Yet in those irregularities, Sanada notices that during weekends, the message's length will be longer than the usual short weekdays messages.

The time, Sanada also notices, while also has its own daily variation but the messages will never be sent at 1 pm until at the very least 3 pm on weekdays and on 6 am to 8 am at Sunday. Later, he finds out, with both of Renji's input and Saeki's answer, that it is the time for daily student council meeting for the former and for the later is the time when the whole Rokkaku team goes for team-bonding at the beach.

The topics, Sanada thinks, are as always, variously ranged from tennis practice, his teammate's antics, school projects, kendo, the student council meeting, to every usually mundane things. Yet somehow Sanada never thinks that they are tedious if they come from Saeki.

Yet, the message that Sanada has always waited is the one that is sent on 5.45 am every Sunday that contains a one sentence description about the beach. Those messages are precious for Sanada as he feels honoured to be trusted by such personal thoughts. He even a single folder to keep them separately and in order. He has all the complete sets from the first time he got this kind of message until the just yesterday sent message.

Yanagi ever asked him about the beach and if it changes weekly. Sanada shook his head and said he did not know. Yukimura raises his eyebrow questioningly then Sanada continued, "All that I know is it is Saeki not the beach."

Marui had commented that it was freaky to change weekly but Sanada merely shrugged and said that everyone changes every time, not only weekly but every second passed. Niou replied on, "When the heck is our fukubuchou becomes a philosopher?" which got a glare from Sanada.

Surprisingly it was Yagyuu's statement that marked the end of the conversation. While he was pushing his glasses up with his leaning posture on the locker in the clubroom, he said, "It is nice to know about his insights about the beach. It deepens the relationship." The club fell into a silence before he smirked while the glasses glinted almost evilly and continued, "After all relationships are best bound by mind not by body."

That had made Niou to laugh hysterically while congratulating on his partner and both of them got another twenty additional laps from fuming/embarrassed Sanada which was the constant target for Yanagi and Yukimura's teases for the rest of the tennis practice that day.

However, Sanada notices with a frown, none of the message ever asks for a meeting or casual outing. Perhaps he should just ask one day he muses as his fingers linger on the cellphone's keypads.

-----------------------

Saeki is kind of accustomed to Sanada's short and straight forward regular messages.

The time when he receives a message from Sanada is always the same. It is either 7 in the morning before Saeki goes to school or 11 in the night just after Saeki finishes brushing his teeth and prepares for bed. Whereas in the weekend, it will be on Saturday's morning and evening.

The content of those messages are almost boring to death at least that is what Davide said one day. The messages never stray from "Good morning, have a good day!" for the morning message of weekdays and "Good night, pleasant sleep!" for the night. The weekends messages are not much varied from the weekday's ones. It will be "Have a nice weekend!" on Saturday morning and "Have a good rest!" on the evening.

Yet, the reason why Saeki always brings his cellphone is the frequent random calls from Sanada. While most of the time it is his teammates such as Yukimura or Yanagi who made the calls and there are always loud cheering of other Rikkaidai's players cheering/teasing on Sanada, but still Saeki waits for them. Honestly, that calls are always hillarious and they always make Saeki laughs heartily while he listens on Sanada's irritated grumbles but still Sanada is always the one who is reluctant to end the call.

Sometimes Saeki wonders why Sanada has not just called him by himself if he wants to hear Saeki's voice instead of making his teammates to make the calls for him. But he finds that Sanada is cute like that, all grumbling bear with cute blushes whereas he speaks in a soft but still gruff voice of his. Thus, Saeki never asks him why but indulges him.

"_Is it Sanada?" Sudou asked him once Saeki hung up after saying goodbye to Sanada across the line._

_Saeki only smiled and nodded, "Yes, and it's Marui this time."_

_Kurobane snorted, "I wonder when he will actually call you himself instead of making his teammates to take turns of that matter."_

_Saeki only chuckled and smiled secretly, "It's okay, he's kind of cute like that."_

_There Kurobane and Sudou looked at him strangely while the activities in the club's room ceased into silence. Later Saeki realized that Sanada and the word cute do not belong in one sentence which even amused him further._

"_Sanada-cute-pfftt…" Then a whack resulted._

However, Saeki notices that the Rikkaidai's fukubuchou never ends a message with a question. They are only statements or words of encouragement when the messages are sent not as replies. Furthermore, none of those messages is asking for a meeting or going out. Hence, Saeki wonders should he ask him one day.

------------------------

One day when the autumn rain falls in Kanagawa region, when the tennis practice is cancelled and when he is sitting on the bench inside the club room, he types the message and hits on the send button. Yet, just after it is sent, his cellphone vibrates, signalling a new mail has just come in.

After reading it, Sanada smiles while is pondering on the timing.

-----------------------

On the day when it is raining in Chiba,the team is cleaning and sorting up the club room, it is when he looks out of the window to the pouring rain then he types the message and hits on the send button whilst smiling. However, just after he sends it, his cellphone beeps and he sees a new message in his inbox.

After skimming on the short message, Saeki chuckles and wonders on the coincidence.

-----------------------

_To: Saeki_

_It is raining so practice is cancelled. Are you free this Saturday?_

_Sanada_

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_To: Sanada_

_It's raining here today. So we are dusting the room instead of the court *smilies* Say, are you free for this Saturday?_

_Saeki_

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End of Second fall

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Author's note:

1. Errmm...is it still readable? OMG! It's been quite a long time that I write so gomen if they are somewhat OOC.

2. Pleae do read and review! Really appreciate them!

3. Relax, next chapter will come soon, I'm writing on it already ;P


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